News

Microsoft To Launch Communications Tools in October

The next generation of Microsoft's efforts at unified communications will be unveiled on Oct. 16.

The next generation of Microsoft's effort at unified communications will be unveiled on Oct. 16 when it launches three products, including its crown jewel, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.

The other two products are Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, the client component of Office Communications Server 2007, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting, a real-time, online collaboration package, the company stated in a brief press release this morning.

The importance Microsoft attaches to the suite of products is evident by the luminaries it has chosen for the launch. Chairman Bill Gates and Microsoft Business Division President Jeff Raikes will preside over the live webcast announcement, slated for 9:15 - 10:30 a.m. PDT.

Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007, the successors to Live Communications Server, have been on a fast track to commercial availability. They were released to manufacturing on July 27, following a final beta period that last about a month. Live Meeting's development focus has been on the back end, helping it to integrate more cleanly with the other two products.

Microsoft's vision of unified communications is that of a seamless environment managed through software, rather than a disparate collection of hardware and software platforms. It unites various forms of voice and electronic communication, including e-mail, instant messaging, voice messaging, video conferencing and Web conferencing.

Although Microsoft didn't give pricing information in the latest press release, previously it has said the licensing model will remain the same as it is for Live Communications server; namely, that both client and server licenses will be needed, and will be available in both Standard and Enterprise versions.

About the Author

Keith Ward is the editor in chief of Virtualization & Cloud Review. Follow him on Twitter @VirtReviewKeith.

comments powered by Disqus

Featured

  • Windows Community Toolkit v8.2 Adds Native AOT Support

    Microsoft shipped Windows Community Toolkit v8.2, an incremental update to the open-source collection of helper functions and other resources designed to simplify the development of Windows applications. The main new feature is support for native ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation.

  • New 'Visual Studio Hub' 1-Stop-Shop for GitHub Copilot Resources, More

    Unsurprisingly, GitHub Copilot resources are front-and-center in Microsoft's new Visual Studio Hub, a one-stop-shop for all things concerning your favorite IDE.

  • Mastering Blazor Authentication and Authorization

    At the Visual Studio Live! @ Microsoft HQ developer conference set for August, Rockford Lhotka will explain the ins and outs of authentication across Blazor Server, WebAssembly, and .NET MAUI Hybrid apps, and show how to use identity and claims to customize application behavior through fine-grained authorization.

  • Linear Support Vector Regression from Scratch Using C# with Evolutionary Training

    Dr. James McCaffrey from Microsoft Research presents a complete end-to-end demonstration of the linear support vector regression (linear SVR) technique, where the goal is to predict a single numeric value. A linear SVR model uses an unusual error/loss function and cannot be trained using standard simple techniques, and so evolutionary optimization training is used.

  • Low-Code Report Says AI Will Enhance, Not Replace DIY Dev Tools

    Along with replacing software developers and possibly killing humanity, advanced AI is seen by many as a death knell for the do-it-yourself, low-code/no-code tooling industry, but a new report belies that notion.

Most   Popular

Subscribe on YouTube